Book & Film Review: Cocoon (コクーン)
Book Author: Machiko Kyo
Anime Director: Toko Ina
Published in 2010 and again with a side story in 2015, the manga series Cocoon is available in a single volume.
The 60-minute anime film premiered in Japan in March 2025, and will be aired again in August 2025
Cocoon is a story about war told through the experience of a young girl in Okinawa during WWII. San is a fictional character based on the real life Himeyuri students, 姫百合学徒隊. They were a group of young girls and their teachers, conscripted into the war effort as a nursing unit in 1945 by the Imperial Japanese Army. The girls were assured they would be safe during an easily won battle, only to be deceived and used by the war effort. Just like the real Himeyuri students, San is initially excited to serve her country as a nurse, thinking herself to be helping the wounded in a nice hospital, only to be sent to the frontline, working in terrible conditions in caves. She is joined by her closest friend, a transfer student named Mayu, and a group of other young girls from her school.
Cocoon uses simple, elegant artwork to weave together the story of these misled school children who are traumatized or killed over the course of the battle. There is minimal color or shading, with soft or harsh lines primarily used to tell the story. We see San’s friends killed by explosions or gunfire. The girls are blinded and burned while they must tend to the traumatized, injured, or dying soldiers with no sign of relief or assistance to their “nursing unit”. Mayu offers San some comforting words to help her feel safe around the unknown men and the girls do their duties to the best of their abilities as it becomes clear this battle is not going to be easily won by the Japanese. Soon enough, this fragile routine is shattered when all the students are told to return home through an active war zone. Those who survived the caves must try and find their way home and more are lost. The girls are whittled down to San and Mayu, the latter of whom eventually succumbs to a gunshot wound. The two friends embrace before it is revealed that Mayu is a young teen boy. His family sent him away and dressed him as a girl in an attempt to spare him from military service, a move that would be seen as cowardly by many. I wonder about Mayu’s parents, who lost their son anyways after making a risky decision to defy orders to keep him safe. San survives the events of the story, but she is devastated by the loss of her friends and her future seems uncertain. The story is sad, beautiful, and I was looking forward to the anime film once I completed the manga.
The anime film though left quite a bit to be desired. The VA was well done and the animation reminded me a bit of “In this Corner of the World”. The simple black and white drawings are brought to life with a dreamy, watercolor style that suits the story well. My favorite adaptational choice was the use of flowers instead of blood. After being dismissed from the caves, the girls attempt to take a shortcut through an abandoned town they do not realize is harboring soldiers. Whenever the girls are shot, a riot of vibrant flowers explode out of them and fill the air, a stream is clogged with petals instead of turning red, and the wounded leak small flowers from wounds. The scene where many of the girls decide to take their own life over being raped/assaulted by enemy soldiers is also tragic. However, we lose a lot of the individual characters’ stories to fit the runtime. Although the manga is only a single volume, trying to fit the entire story into 60 minutes is not possible. This is a common adaptational issue, but losing those character beats harms the story as we don’t spend as much time with San’s friends, so their injuries and deaths do not hit as hard as they did in the manga. I also felt a bit conflicted at how the American soldiers were portrayed as “good guys” when that was not always the case.
I read some complaints and condemnations of the film online. Some were angry that this story was being told over the victims of the Japanese Imperial Army. I can see why some may not want to read or watch Cocoon if they are aware of the atrocities committed by the Army during WWII. That is a fair point, yet I have a hard time faulting school children for falling for propaganda, only to realize they’d been deceived and then abandoned by their country. These complaints were also levied at “Jojo Rabbit”, which while much more comedic in tone, focuses on a boy in the Hitler Youth. While Cocoon is sympathetic to the girls, I did not feel like it was favorable of the military in general or the war. Regardless, just like “In this Corner of the World”, “Jojo Rabbit”, or even “Grave of the Fireflies”, the topic may still not be something everyone wants to read or watch. I think the manga is a worthwhile read and I am interested in Kyo’s other works on the topic of war.
Review by Dee
Twitter and BlueSky: @sirenofscience
